


After the War | Hiatus

by indigoat



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Fix-It, Multi, au where everything is fine and nothing is wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigoat/pseuds/indigoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Howard Stark didn’t inject you with steroids so you could die at the bottom of the ocean. Coordinates, please!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Don’t you dare hang up on me,” Peggy said, “I am going to get you out of here.”

“Peggy, I have to send this plane down, now. People are going to die if I don’t.”

“I do not doubt that, Steve. Just give me your coordinates.”

“What?”

“Your coordinates,” Peggy would’ve rolled her eyes if the situation had been less dire. “Give me your coordinates, so we’ll know where to look for your plane after its crashed.”

“Assuming I survive that.”

“Howard Stark didn’t inject you with steroids so you could die at the bottom of the ocean. Coordinates, please!”

“Alright, hang on, coordinates…” She could hear him moving around, looking at the dashboard. “36.03, -65.21.”

Peggy pulled a pen from her breast pocket and scribbled the numbers on her palm, then on her shirt sleeve when she realised her palms were slick with sweat, smearing the ink and making it illegible. 

“Steve?”

 

“I’m still here.”

“I’ve got you,” she said. “Just stay alive until I get there.” For the first time since she’d started talking to him, he could hear a note of fear in her voice. “Surely Captain America can manage that?”

“I’ll do my—“ Steve’s voice was cut off suddenly, and only static filled Peggy’s ears. The plane had crashed.

. . .

“You’ll be able to find him, right, Howard?” Peggy asked for the seventh time. Howard Stark pulled on his aviator’s hat and looked at her, for once keeping a serious face.

“Of course I can. This is me we’re talking about, Peg.”

He couldn't bring himself to tell her that there was a good chance the Captain hadn't survived the crash; that he had drowned in the ocean or was paralysed from the frigid temperature or had been trapped in the plane as it sunk. He couldn’t bear to think, either, that the only good thing he’d ever invented had just been lost forever. Instead he tightened the straps on his hat, started the engine, and nodded at Peggy. She stepped backwards as he steered the plane down the runway, then lifted up off the concrete and climbed through the air. She watched until the plane became only a little black speck in the distance, and stood there even after it had gone, hoping for a miracle.

. . .

As soon as Steve gave Peggy his coordinates he pointed the plane’s controls downwards, then leapt up and began to tear the space apart, looking for something to help him survive the crash. He could feel blood rushing in his ears and his hands were slippery with sweat, he didn’t want to die like this. Not yet. For a moment, he thought of Bucky falling down the snowy chasm, just as he, Steve, was now falling through the air in a jet full of explosives. He shook his head, but now Bucky’s scream was echoing in his ears. His hands fell onto something canvas, strappy; he picked it up and shook his head. A parachute. 

Adrenaline and hope now coursing through his veins, he pulled the pack on, his fingers shaking a bit as he buckled the straps. He ran to the controls to check his altitude, picked his shield up from the floor, and used the side of it to hack away at the lock on the emergency exit door on the starboard side. The door flew open and Steve was pulled out of the falling plane, tumbling through the air. As it plummeted downwards below him, Steve pulled the plug on his parachute and felt the familiar tug of the vest around his chest, as the fabric enveloped outwards and caught the air. 

Below him, the plane hit the ice with a crash that sent millions of cracks across the frozen surface. The metal shattered, and black oil spread across the ocean’s surface. The parachute carried him away from the wreckage, and the small fires that the oil had caused. He landed on the ice and lay there, feeling the cold spread through his body, and his lungs expand with each breath he took. He was alive. He was alive.

Shakily, he stood up, squinting as the ice surrounding him reflected the sun’s rays. He could see the plane off in the distance, slowly sinking lower and lower into the water, and small fires from the oil on top of the ice, with black smoke rising up. He squinted up into the sky—how long would it take Peggy to find him? What if they couldn’t, what if he died out here, alone, in the ice? His whole body ached from his landing, and slowly he sat back down, feeling the cold soak through his uniform and chill him all the way to his bones. His shield sat next to him, shining in the bright sun but frozen to the touch.

He couldn’t know how long it had been; it felt like days, and then suddenly there was a plane in the sky, coming closer and closer. Steve struggled to stand up, his body either frozen or numb, disobeying his brain’s command to move. The plane sank lower and lower, and then in a blur it was landing, the skis on the snow, and Howard Stark was jumping out, pushing up his goggles, running into Steve so hard he slipped and they both toppled over onto the ice. 

“You made it,” Howard kept saying, helping Steve up, putting his arm around his waist and leading him back to the plane. “I found you.”

He helped Steve into the back, who by now was so cold his lips were tinged blue, and his teeth were chattering so hard he couldn’t speak. 

“We’ll get you to the hospital, don’t worry,” Howard said, pulling his goggles down over his eyes and starting the engine again. “I’m taking you home.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steve had to stay in the hospital for a weeks—apparently even super soldier experiments could suffer from dehydration and shock—and Howard and Peggy spent all of the visiting hours available with him. Howard seemed to have a permanent smile beneath his mustache and Peggy would alternatively go from being ridiculously angry that Steve was going to sacrifice himself and ridiculously happy that he was alive and almost all well.

On May 8th, both Peggy and Howard visited, the latter with a towel around his head and his clothing damp.

“He tried to kiss me, so I pushed him into the bay,” Peggy explained, seeing the confusion on Steve’s face. 

“Sorry about that, uh… overexcited,” Howard said, looking both sheepish and amused. Peggy rolled her eyes and was about to say something when she noticed Howard reaching for his briefcase.

“Howard Stark, you’re not supposed to have that in the patients’ ward,” Peggy exclaimed as Howard pulled out a bottle of bourbon. He shrugged and uncorked it.

“Come on Peg, it’s VE day. The war is over.” He took a sip, then passed it to Peggy. She shook her head but took a long swig. 

“What about me?” Steve asked as she handed the bottle back to Howard, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

“Sorry, Steve, you’re not allowed to drink anything this hard yet,” she said. Steve pouted.

“I’m helped end this war and you’re not going to let me celebrate?”

“Doctor’s orders,” Howard said with a smirk, as Peggy snatched the bottle from him again. Steve fell back onto his pillows, scowling.

They spoke of what opportunities awaited them after the war—Captain America was to be retired, but Howard would continue to work on Project Rebirth. Peggy had gotten a position at the Strategic Scientific Reserve in the city and would be starting the following week. Steve figured he’d find something, somehow he’d never allowed himself to imagine what he would do after the war was over. It was good to know he had a future now.

After another half hour of visiting, Howard stood up and stretched. “I’ve got to go; I have a date tonight.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “What a surprise.”

“Don’t be like that, Peg, she’s really nice.”

“Maybe so, but you’re not.”

Howard shrugged, shoved the bourbon back into his bag, and pulled on his jacket. “Guess not. ‘Night, Peg, Cap.”

He left the room. Peggy sighed as a disapproving mother might and Steve laughed, remembering when he had thought the two were a couple. 

“I can’t believe it’s over,” he said. The past few years had been a blur—him signing up for every enlistment possible, the hundreds of rejections, and then, the whole Captain America thing. His mind wandered to Bucky, and how jealous he’d been when his friend had been chosen for the army without him. Now, he was frozen in some foreign country, without a grave marker or anything to signify who he had been, who he had died being. Steve tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I know,” Peggy said softly from her perch in front of the window. She looked outside to the street below, watching pedestrians walking through the street, arm in arm. How many of them had lost someone they loved? 

“I’m sorry about your friend James,” she added, looking over at Steve. “He seemed like a good man.”

“He—he was,” Steve said, looking down at his bedsheets, feeling his eyes start to burn. He wiped his face impatiently, turning away so Peggy wouldn’t see him.  
She walked from the window to the side of his bed and sat down. “I lost… my brother. Michael. He died fighting… like any of us could have done. It was him that encouraged me to go after what I really wanted, be a part of something bigger than me. But still, I wonder sometimes, why did it have to be him? But then I think, how could I wish the pain I feel onto some other sister?”

Steve took her hand and squeezed it gently, and she returned it, her grip tight with grief. 

“It’s over,” he said, talking around the lump in his throat. “Losing people, it’s over now.”

. . .

That Friday Steve was discharged from the hospital, but he wouldn’t let Peggy or Howard accompany him to collect his things from the army.  
“You’ve been living with me for weeks,” he said. “Take care of yourselves.” So Howard shrugged and said he knew a telephone operator in Brooklyn, anyway, and Peggy decided to make a pit stop at the L&L Automat and start looking for a flat she could live in now that she would be working for the SSR.

“What can I get ya?” the friendly-faced waitress asked when Peggy had been seated in a green vinyl booth.

“Just coffee, please,” Peggy said, unfolding her newspaper.

“Ooh, English,” the waitress said. “I like it.”

When she returned with the coffee, she set it down and then peered at the section of newspaper Peggy was pouring over. 

“Looking for an apartment?” she asked, sitting down in the seat opposite Peggy and looking at her eagerly.

“Oh, yes,” Peggy said. The waitress smiled.

“Have you heard of Griffiths?” she asked. “That’s where I’m stayin’. It’s really nice, and there’s loads of friendly girls there.” She lowered her voice. “And it’s cheap—in case money’s an issue with you.”

“Sort of,” Peggy admitted, and the waitress laughed. “That sounds—what’s it called again?”

By the time the hour hand on the clock above the exit to the diner hit eight, Peggy had a new address to look for residency, and a new friend.

“My name is Angie, by the way,” the waitress said, standing up and taking Peggy’s empty cup.

“Peggy Carter.”

Angie shook her head. “You’re stayin’ English to me. See ya!”


	3. Chapter 3

About a week later, Peggy was getting ready for bed (she had successfully rented a room in the Griffiths building) when she heard someone tap against her window. Carefully, she opened her dresser and reached for a small handgun, then hid it behind her back and walked to the window.

“Howard!” she exclaimed, wishing the person had been some sort of villain whom she could push off the ledge, not someone she had to allow inside. Howard Stark inside an apartment building full of women? “You really… Howard, I do have a telephone, you know!”

“Of course I know,” he panted. “This sort of thing cannot be said over the phone. Can I come in, please?”

“For goodness sake,” Peggy muttered, tossing the gun onto her bed and grabbing Howard by the arm. She helped heave him through the window, then made sure her bedroom door was locked. “Keep quiet, I’ll not have you getting me thrown out of here.”

“Thrown out?” he repeated.

“No boys allowed,” she whispered. “Now what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Peg,” Howard said, still not bothering to keep his voice down. He bounced slightly on the balls of his feet. “I was thinking about Sargent Barnes, Rogers’ friend?”  
“What about him?”

“Well, what if we rescued him?”

“Excuse me?” Peggy said, taken aback. “Wasn’t Sargent Barnes lost in Europe?”

“No, well, yes. But Peg, I’ve been working on something, you wouldn’t understand most of it, but basically, it can accept a sample of DNA, then locate another match within a 100 mile radius; it was supposed to be for the military, to identify bodies that have been… you know. But I thought, hey, this could work, too.”

Peggy was silent. Finally she said, “But he wouldn’t be—“

“Alive, yes, I know,” Howard interrupted. “But still—it’s closure. You know how that is.”

Peggy knew. Michael’s body had never been recovered. “Alright. Do you want to tell Steve?” 

. . .

Steve knocked on the door of Howard Stark’s mansion, and was greeted by an English man who introduced himself as Mr. Jarvis, Howard’s butler.  
“Is Stark home?” Steve asked. “He told me to stop by.”

“Yes—I’ll go fetch him. If you will?” He gestured to the sitting room, and Steve walked past him and sat down in one of the arm chairs, looking around. The Stark mansion was a big step up from his apartment in Brooklyn—in fact, he was pretty sure the whole of his flat could have fit comfortably in the room he was now occupying. 

“I was on the phone with an artist—I’m trying to commission a stained glass window for the dining room,” Howard’s voice said from the doorway. He entered the room and sat down across from Steve, looking rather like a king on his throne. “Like it?” he added, since Steve was still staring at the overwhelming glamour.

“It’s uh, very you,” Steve settled for, and Howard smiled, then assumed a very serious expression.

“So, I already talked to Peggy about this, and she thinks it’s a good idea.” He held out a small device that looked rather like a walkie-talkie. “This is what I call the Trovare. It can be used to track down, um, people you’ve lost.”

It took a moment for Steve to catch on to what Howard was saying. “You mean, you can use that thing to find Buck—Sargent Barnes?”  
“That’s the idea,” Howard told him. “Then, we’d be able to give him a proper funeral, one at home.”

“He deserves that,” Steve said quietly, glad Howard was ignoring the tears that were welling in his eyes once more. But Howard only nodded, and pocketed the device.

“He certainly does.”


	4. Chapter 4

“So, we set up base in the valley,” Peggy said, looking at the notes they’d written. “Then we use Trovare to find him.”

“Yup,” Howard said, walking into the room. “I’ve finished packing everything up and the helicopter is ready so…”

“Time to go?” Peggy asked. Howard nodded.

“Time to go.”

After he left the room, Peggy looked over at Steve. “Are you sure you want to come? It may be difficult to see—“

“I know,” Steve said, and there was a pain in his face that made him look a hundred years old. “But I have to go. I have to be there for him.”

Peggy nodded and stood up. “Then let’s go.”

. . .

When they stepped out of the helicopter the cold wind bit at their faces and got past their thick coats, chilling them to the bone. The snow that surrounded them was a blinding white, and sank up to their knees. Howard fiddled with his device, then turned to the others, his cheeks red and his voice raised to be heard over the howling wind.

“It’s all set,” he shouted, handing the others two smaller devices. “These are transmitters that will send information back here—“ he tapped the Trovare, “—and once one of us picks up on a signal we can rope off the area and comb it more thoroughly. Got it?” Peggy and Steve both nodded. “Alright, then. Here we go.”

The small group dispersed, pushing through the snow and holding out the transmitters. Steve made is way to the right, trying not to think about Bucky’s body, frozen, hidden under the snow. What would he look like; would he be in one piece? Would his eyes still be open? Would his mouth still be open in the scream that haunted Steve’s nightmares, the one that woke him up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat and shaking uncontrollably? He shook his head. Don’t think about that, he told himself sternly. That won’t help Bucky. 

But nothing will help Bucky, his head told him back. He’s dead.

The realization hit him so hard he stumbled and fell to the ground. Bucky was dead; the man who’d been by his side for his whole life, was gone. Tears leaked from Steve’s eyes and froze against his cheeks. Slowly, painfully, he stood up and walked on.

They met at the tent that had been set up a few hours later, cold, sore, and dejected. No one had found any trace of him.

“I don’t understand,” Howard said, staring down at the Trovare. “It should be working…”

“Perhaps the temperature is causing it to malfunction?” Peggy suggested. Howard shook his head.

“I’m going back out,” Steve said, pulling the flap of the tent open. Peggy stood up. 

“Steve, why don’t you stay here a bit longer, we can—“

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ll be careful, I promise.” And with that, he disappeared.

He hiked through the paths that had already been made by the others, then took a sharp left. The snow was not past his knees, and each step was unbearably slow.

“C’mon,” Steve muttered, looking down at the device in his hand and willing it to do something. He pushed ahead, and suddenly it began to flash a bright red. Steve was so surprised he dropped it and it sank into the snow. He dug it back out, his heart racing, and began to step forward, making sure the red light remained. He was so absorbed in the light that he hardly knew, or cared, where he was going, and suddenly walked into the side of a snow covered cave. 

“Bucky?” He croaked, his throat dry. He looked around. A cave, perhaps he’d fallen, and someone could live in a cave… no, that was stupid… he was letting his emotions cloud his judgement, but still…

A flash of red caught Steve’s eye, and he stepped closer to the cave, reaching out to brush away the snow. He felt his jaw drop as the snow fell away to reveal not the rocky side of a cave but a sheet of grey metal emblazoned with a red skull, surrounded by six curling tentacles.

He pounded through the snow, blood rushing in his ears, and burst into the tent. Peggy and Howard both jumped up, looking at him in alarm.

“Steve, what happened?” Peggy asked, rushing over to his side. 

“HY—HYDRA—“ Steve panted. “I was following the light and it led me to a wall, and HYDRA’s logo was right there.” He looked around at them all. “HYDRA has Bucky.”


	5. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I'm sorry for being inactive with this story; my laptop broke so I was unable to type up what I'd written thus far. This chapter is short since it's all I could manage to type currently but I'm working on my laptop problem, wish me luck  
> Thank you for reading <3

"Steve are you--are you quite sure that he's in there?" Peggy asked cautiously. "The Howling Commandos were supposed to have eradicated HYDRA after the war."  
"I'm sure," Steve said. "This thing was blinking like crazy when I was there, so they must have found him, and taken him--"

"How the hell are we supposed to get him back?" Howard demanded. "We have no intel, no back-up, but if he's alive then we may not have that long until we lose him for good--HYDRA isn't made up of what I'd call hospitable people."

"We may actually have back-up," Peggy said. "I've been keeping in touch with Dum-Dum Dugan, and unless I'm mistaken he and the Howlers were posted not too far from here."

"But even if we have them, we still have no idea what we're facing," Howard argued. "And I'm a pilot and inventor, not a soldier. I'll be about as useful to you as a broken engine."

"I rescued Bucky and a hundred more guys during the war without knowing what I'd find," Steve said. "What's the difference?" 

"Let me just try and contact Dugan," Peggy interrupted as Howard opened his mouth. She walked to the other side of the tent.

"Listen, Steve," Howard said, his voice low. "You know I want to help. But the calculated risks of just going in and--"

"You said it yourself," Steve said, "You're an inventor, you calculate risks. But me? I take them."

. . .

"That's them," Peggy said, pointing up to a black blur in the sky. She'd successfully recruited Dugan and the rest of the Commandos as back-up, and they'd waited in the tent huddled around a heater for a few hours, planning their course of action. The Howling Commandos were known to be a rowdy, jovial bunch, but when they stepped out of the helicopter to greet the others there was no laughter, no jokes. 

"Alright, listen up," Peggy said once everyone had filed into the tent. "We've just discovered that a HYDRA base still exists here, and our sources say that they've kidnapped Sargent James Barnes. Now, when we break in, we'll divide into two teams: one to search for wherever they've taken him and the other as defense against whomever we're unlucky enough to come across inside." She took a deep breath. "I won't hide from you that we know almost nothing about what we're facing, and this mission is not without its risks." She looked around. "Let's get on, then."

As everyone made to get up, Howard grabbed Steve by the elbow and pulled him to the corner of the tent. "I've got something for you."

"Captain America's shield?" Steve asked as Howard unearthed it from beneath a pile of blankets.

"Your shield," Howard corrected, handing it to him. "I had a feeling we might need it."

Steve followed Howard out of the tent, the shield's weight comfortable and familiar in his arm. He felt like Captain America again, the Man With A Plan, the man who could save Sargent Barnes.


End file.
